The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives all over the world, rendering different countries to take measures to protect their populations from potential health, economic and societal hardships. Various human rights organisations however show the Islamabad government failed to help people and rather let amplify their sufferings. Even the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in its 2020 report said the human rights violations continued to happen in the country even during Covid-19 pandemic, which included forced conversions of religious minorities to crimes against women and children to enforced disappearances to curbs on freedom of expression.
Shockingly, many people were denied basic healthcare services and the frontline health workers too received ill-treatment from law enforcement agencies. International watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) too expressed concerns over harassment and persecution of human rights defenders by Pakistani officials over criticism of governance and policies. Not just Islamabad government turned blind eye to human rights abuses, torture and extrajudicial killings but it also failed in stopping Islamic radicals from killing people from religious minorities, it said. Also, another global organisation Amnesty International and the US government have revealed how crackdown on media, civil society and political intensified during 2020.
According to the HRCP, medical professionals were not given necessary safety gears while working in hazardous conditions and they were subjected to official reprimands and police brutality whenever they expressed their concerns over the lack of medical equipment in public. To make it worse, the Imran Khan- led government even accused the frontline health workers of being protesting on the behalf of the opposition parties in Pakistan, leave alone solving their problems.
Coming down heavily on the government, the HRCP said the pandemic exposed Pakistan’s healthcare system as people’s right to health was denied. Women were more prone to abuse during the pandemic thanks to the lack of access to basic health services. Adding insult to injury, religious leaders continued with their misogynist behaviour. Famous Pakistani cleric Maulana Tariq Jamil blamed women for “wrongdoings” and “lack of modesty” for the spread of coronavirus in the country.3 Also, a protest march seeking equal rights was labelled as “vulgar” and “obscene” by radicals and a section of media. Pakistan ranked 151 out of 153 on the Global Gender Gap Index Report 2020, ahead of just Iran and Yemen.
According to the HRCP, Pakistan saw large-scale discrimination against minority communities, 31 cases of forced conversions while 430 cases of honour killing. Pakistani agencies detained or arrested people en masse during the crackdowns and put them in the overcrowded jails, thus increasing the possibilities of infection. Despite appeals, the government did not listen and even the Supreme Court did not act, said Amnesty International. The human right organisation also said that the use of enforced disappearances became more blatant and frequent in 2020 despite the Covid-19 lockdowns. There has been discriminatory and violent campaign against the religious minorities in Pakistan. As many as 40 people in Pakistan faced death sentence by end of 2020 thanks to blasphemy law.
Even Ahmediyas, an offshoot of Islam, are subjected to attacks and even death sentences by Pakistani courts on charges of blasphemy. Imran Khan had to fire his economic advisor Atif Mian, a Princeton University professor, following public backlash over he being an Ahmediya. Even court of law in Pakistan is complicit in the religious discrimination, indicate the report by US government. “Lower courts often failed to adhere to basic evidentiary standards in blasphemy cases, and most convicted persons spent years in jail before higher courts eventually overturned their convictions or ordered their release,” reads the 2020 US report on human rights.
While Pakistan has always been targeting its neighbour India for suppression of human rights in Jammu & Kashmir, it has failed to prevent human rights violation in a part of Kashmir under its control. According to HRCP, press is controlled by a government body. Also, Pakistan government has formulated a criminal law to impose curbs on “limited freedom of expression”. While Pakistan bats for free Kashmir on the global platform, a law called Election Act 2020 bars formation of any political party that speaks for independent Kashmir state.
